Waiting
by Elsa Hellenway
Summary: AU. He calls, every night, without fail. Sometimes she picks up; usually, she doesn’t.


You call, every night, without fail. Sometimes she picks up; usually, she doesn't.

Sakura's a very busy person, after all—young, up and coming doctor; destined to become one of Japan's greatest. She got through her residency in two years—she became a doctor at twenty-four, and promises to surpass even her famous teacher.

Why would she have time for a starving musician like you?

So, you're not exactly starving—your family had been quite rich in their day, and you had inherited everything. You're still struggling on the music front, but all good things come to those who wait, right?

You've been calling Sakura since long before her medical career—you've been calling her every night since your freshman year of college (that was when the habit started, though you've known her since middle school). It began when she asked you to show her your new song when you finished, so you did—you called her, put her on speaker phone, and sang it to her, softly strumming the melody on your guitar. She'd applauded and laughed and told you that it was beautiful—_you'll be famous one day, Sasuke-kun; just you wait!_—and that your music was her favorite. She begged you to sing her more, and you promised you would—tomorrow.

Anything for a chance to talk to her more.

She'd started off as an acquaintance—you met at age twelve, through your mutual friend, Uzumaki Naruto, the boy that you both called your best friend. Back then, she had been rather annoying—obsessing over her looks, and always claiming that she loved you.

Three years later, she didn't really seem that different, until one day, you really _looked_ at her, and saw that she was. She still looked the same—a bit older, maybe, but that was it—but she was carefree. Confident. Strong. She spoke her mind, stood up for what she believed in, and would rather die than give up.

She became more like a true friend to you; someone that you honestly enjoyed spending time with. Sakura was a mesmerizing speaker: she seldom spoke of anything deathly important, but always seemed to have something interesting to say, nonetheless—an article that she had read the night before, or maybe a book, a magazine (she always seemed to be reading, Sakura did). Why vegetables weren't real, and what made each of the so-called 'vegetables' a different type of food—why tomatoes were fruits and carrots roots. The reasons why Reincarnation existed (even though she was atheist—it just seemed a little too coincidental to her that the Dalai Lama had been able to identify all those objects, unless it was the biggest scam in the world—such as astronauts _actually_ landing on the moon: everyone knew it was just a Hollywood production!).

You don't see her all that often nowadays—sometimes you wonder if she still looks like, well, _Sakura_. Oh, she still has her pink hair and green eyes and probably still wears red excessively, but you're afraid that one day you'll look at her, and realize that you don't really know her, this girl, this doctor.

But enough of that—you call her every night, just to hear her voice. Sometimes, you make things up just to be able to talk to her. Whenever you feel like you're just hitting a dead-end with your life—_seriously, become a music star? are you seven?_—you remind yourself that you _have_ to write another song, because if you don't, then you would have no reason to call.

So you write another song so that you do.

You dial the seven numbers that are your only bridge to her—_since when did you drift so far apart?_—and wait through the tone. Sometimes, you hope that she'll pick up—sometimes you pray, and sometimes you cross your fingers (you would never admit any of this, because you are an Uchiha, and above such nonsense).

More often than not—_'Hey, this is Haruno Sakura, I'm not in right now, but I'll get back to you as quick as I can, so please leave a message after the beep! Beep!'_—and sometimes you will leave a message. Usually you don't. Sometimes, you'll hang up and dial again, just because you can, and there's always the chance that she'll pick up on the fourth time around, and maybe she was just taking a shower and couldn't get to the phone.

Whenever she does answer the phone, however, your heart soars, and it almost feels as though a huge weight is taken off of your shoulders.

Until she says, "Hey, sorry, can I call you back?" and you say, "Sure," because there's nothing else you can say, even though you know she won't.

Or she says, "Hey, Sasuke, sorry, I can't talk right now," and you say, "Okay," because she's a busy person who's going places, and you're not.

Or maybe, "Sorry, Sasuke, can I call you tomorrow?" and you say, "Yeah," because there's always the hope that she will.

Sometimes, though, she's not busy. Sometimes, you catch her at a good time, and even though that's almost never, it never fails to make your day slightly brighter, and you'll sing her a song, and she'll applaud and laugh and tell you it's beautiful, and that you'll be famous one day, Sasuke-kun; just you wait, and that your music is her favorite—just like old times, when she wasn't so busy, and she belonged to only two people—you and Naruto—instead of the whole world.

Sometimes, on very special occasions, you'll sing her two or three songs, because you always have more than she has time for—you're constantly writing them in the hope that maybe this time she'll pick up the phone, and you don't know what you would do if she picked up and you didn't have anything for her—and those times are the best, because you can almost forget that she belongs to the world, and even that she belongs to Naruto, and imagine her belonging to only one person—you.

You always were selfish.

But, eventually, she hangs up, and you shrug, because there's always tomorrow.

One day, however, there isn't it, because now, instead of just her job, you're competing with her _boyfriend_, Kiba—and then it's Gaara, then Neji, and after that, you stop learning the names of Sakura's flavor of the week. All that really matters is that she picks up the phone even less than usual, and that your list of songs that have gone unsung grows longer and longer—farther and farther away from that small list that you're saving for a special day when you take the plunge and tell her that you maybe might sort of kind of—

But you don't, because now it's Shikamaru, and this one seems to last longer than most, and you're just her old friend from high school that she talks to every once and a while on the phone, and doesn't see face to face for months at a time.

She begins to pick up the phone less and less, and you really stop trying. What's the point if she's not going to answer, anyway? Your calls slip from every day to every other day to once a week to once a month, and with those odds, you never really talk at all.

You see her from time to time, of course (_when was the last time? two months? three months? four?)_, but usually it's just you and Naruto, because Sakura has her high-income, demanding job, and her perfect, longtime boyfriend _(has it been a year already?)_, and suddenly old, childhood friends aren't as important to her. She has new friends, of course, and still, it's just you and Naruto—two guys looking for a break that just ain't coming. And still you think that you might possibly perhaps maybe—

But no, because now she and Shikamaru have broken up, and when you see her for the first time in months, she's crying, and swearing that she won't fall in love ever again, because men suck. And she returns her attentions to her great medical career—she's now among Japan's best; part of a small, exclusive club that allows her to jet around the country and the world to speak at important medical get-togethers, and she's met the Emperor of Japan, and the President of the United States, and so many other important people, and—

You're just a starving musician with no direction in your life.

One day, on a whim, you record that list of songs that you wrote _(about her, though you'll never admit it)_, and send it into a recording company. You don't know what you were thinking—or if you were thinking at all, really. However, it happens—ten years after she'd first said it, you're famous. You don't know how, but you are—an overnight success story. Women gush about how _cute_ you are (after all, your first CD is all about a girl that you possibly may kind of—but she doesn't, but that doesn't mean that it won't happen, someday, right?), and men secretly like your music, too, though most would rather die than admit it (you're not sure exactly how you feel about this, but you figure that most men are just like you: uncomfortable with admitting feelings that they could potentially, but not definitely, have).

You call her, and she picks up, miraculously. You ask her if she liked the CD (you sent it to her in the mail), and she says that it was beautiful, and seems surprised that she hasn't heard any of them, as though you've been calling her every night like old times, instead of half-heartedly once-monthly. Instead of saying this, you just say that you were saving them for something special—she assumes that you mean this CD, but you really mean the day that you might've should've would've acknowledged—

And you're not really sure if you're happy or not, that she doesn't notice that every one of those songs is about her.

One night, you wake up to the phone ringing—it's three in the morning. You almost ignore it (you roll over and pull your covers over your head in order to muffle the sound), but then your conscience starts talking, and you think that it could possibly be Naruto, or maybe _about_ Naruto—he could have been in a car crash, lying in a coma, and you know that you're the person that he's entrusted to make medical decisions for him if he is incapable—

So, you pick up the phone, and it's not Naruto—it's Sakura.

For the first time ever, you're not calling her—she's calling you.

"Sakura?" you say, rubbing at your eyes, trying to wake up more. Your voice sounds rough from sleeping.

"Sasuke," is all she says.

She seems a bit at a loss as to how to carry on, so you ask, "You okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah," is her response. "I'm fine."

"Sakura, it's three a.m."

"Oh, sorry!" she apologizes—she always seems to be doing that. "You know what? I'll call you later. Tomorrow."

She starts to say goodbye, but you cut her off, because you've gone down this road before, many, many times. "No, it's okay," you insist. "Just tell me what's wrong."

She avoids the question and asks if you'll meet her at the corner twenty-four hour coffee shop.

You say yes, because what else can you say? It's Sakura. Have you ever been able to say no?

She dodges around the subject of why you're meeting in a coffee shop at three-thirty in the morning, but you pretend not to notice, because she's talking about if caffeine should be banned, because it is a legitimately addictive substance, and it's just like old times.

You're finally beginning to feel awake (a quad shot of espresso does that to a person) when she shyly gets to the point. "Sasuke? That CD…"

You don't ask her to continue as she takes a moment to gather her thoughts, because you're afraid that she'll stop if you do, and you think that she might have finally realized that—

"Is it about anyone in particular?"

—that you love her.

You nod once, because you're not sure that you trust yourself to speak, and you've stopped blinking a long time ago, because you can't tear your eyes away from her.

She glances up to look you in the eye, and, very quietly, asks, "Who is it about?" So quietly, that you wouldn't have heard her at all if you weren't sitting just across the table from her.

You lean forward, tilt your head slightly to the side, and breathe, "You," before kissing her softly.

After all, all good things come to those who wait.


End file.
